This is my favorite blog to do. I get to relive the beach trip and share it with you. Ever since our first trip to the Outer Banks I have been hooked and it is a favorite destination for our entire family. Be ready for a ton of pictures. Here we go!
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Dr. Poo and his Turdis
(thank you, Jeremy, for this funny memory) |
July 23, 2016. We were all so excited about this trip. It was a chance to get away and enjoy a slower, more relaxed pace after an incredibly hectic and busy summer. We were all up and ready to get in the truck by 7:00 a.m. which says a lot because we are usually whining about having to be up by 8:00. The drive went smoothly with only a few bathroom breaks.
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| Really cool tree |
Thanks to the wonders of GPS, we discovered a new, back route into the Outer Banks and cut off about two hours of snail traffic. Our house wasn't quite ready so we stopped in Duck and did some shopping and goofing off.
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| Chillin' in his big chair |
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| Another really cool tree. They are everywhere |
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| We have FINALLY arrived!! |
Our house was ready right on time so we checked in, moved in and headed right to the beach! This year we were smart and brought all the groceries we would need for dinner and snacks so we didn't have to head right to the store. The water was colder than it has been in the past, but that did not stop us.
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| Steve was the first one out catching some waves. |
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| Jeremy showing off his Dasani water label fashion. |
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| Feeding the birds |
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| The birds have missed Jeremy feeding them. |
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| The kids' favorite game - run and dive over the waves. |
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| Here they go! |
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| There goes Nick with his feet in the air |
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Next is Jeremy. He flipped over the wave. Naomi just gets blasted in the face.
She calls the ocean "natures Neti Pot." |
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| I love this picture with only one leg of both Nick and Jeremy showing. |
After several hours on the beach and playing in the waves we headed back to the beach house for dinner. Steve and I left the kids to relax and headed to the grocery store now that the crowds had most likely died down. We only had a few things to get this time as we have learned our lesson about buying certain items once we get to the beach. Popular items are more expensive since they have a captive audience and can charge more. Things like cereal and snacks! We got everything on our list and headed back to the house to relax. It was a great first day of vacation.
When we made room assignments we realized that this was the first year we would be at the beach without someone joining us. It was both weird and exciting. The kids loved it because they each got their own room.
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| Naomi's personal space. Notice how "at home" she is already. |
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| Jeremy turned his room into his writing studio. |
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| Nick just chilled. |
July 24, 2016. We were back on the beach first thing in the morning and stayed until about 2 o'clock that afternoon. It was an amazing day. The water was still colder than normal which we discovered through some research was due to the wind coming from off the land and blowing the warmer top water out to sea. This also made for smaller waves. We just needed to wait for the wind to change and come off the ocean and everything would warm up and the waves would return. The good side of this story is that with the wind coming from the land it was hotter than normal because it was a warmer wind so the colder water was the perfect way to cool down a bit.
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| Another funny falling picture of Jeremy. |
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| Doing some boogie boarding. |
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| Taking a break to enjoy the soft sand. |
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| There are ghost crabs everywhere but they usually don't come out during the day. |
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| Nick loves to dig |
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| Deciding what to build out of sand today. |
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| Catching a wave |
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| This wave came crashing down on Nick right when he got to shore and he crashed pretty hard... |
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| ...which led to our first boogie board casualty of the trip. |
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| Nick recovering after his epic crash. |
At 2 o'clock we decided to head back to the house to change and go in search of Jeremy's perfect sweatshirt (an Outer Banks tradition) and get a new boogie board for Nick. We accomplished both goals and Nick got to drive the go-carts.
Back at the house we had dinner and decided to go for a walk on the beach before bedtime. The perfect way to end a perfect day.
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| Someone else had dug these holes and had put up the barriers so the waves wouldn't fill their holes. We thought it looked like eyes and eyebrows so the kids added the nose and the mouth. The masterpiece is now complete. |
July 25, 2016. We slept in, had breakfast and headed to the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk. In all the years we have been coming to the Outer Banks we have never visited this historic site. It was really cool to be there and see where the first flight took place.
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| The view from the top of the monument. |
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| This rock marks the spot where the first flights started. |
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The white markers are the how long the first four flights lasted.
The first flight lasted 12 seconds and went 120 feet.
The second flight also lasted 12 seconds but went 175 feet.
The third flight lasted 15 seconds and went 200 feet.
The fourth flight lasted 57 seconds and went 852 feet. |
After our walk through history it was back to the beach to play some more. We can never get enough of being on the beach.
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| Naomi needed some extra protection from the sun. |
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| Just soaking it all in. |
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| Jeremy chilling like a typical teenager. |
July 26, 2016. In honor of Steve's birthday he got to plan the schedule for the day. We were on the beach by 10:30. There were some kids already in the water enjoying the waves when their mother yelled "FIN!!!" They ran screaming out of the water. We all watched for a minute and realized it wasn't a shark fin, but a dolphin fin instead. Our first year I saw the fin and panicked just like this other mother. One of the residents happened to be on the beach and told me that there was a family of dolphins that lived here and if you saw dolphins you could be fairly sure there were no sharks. I shared this information with the terrified mother and we all got an incredible treat of watching a dad, mom and baby dolphin play in the waves about 50 feet from shore. It was like they knew it was Steve's birthday and this was their present to him. So cool!
Once the dolphins had passed, everyone went back to playing in the ocean.
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| Steve found a ball that bounces on the water and in the waves. You can see where the ball bounced at the top of the wave behind Jeremy. They played ball in the waves for hours. It was fun to watch. |
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| Another favorite game - wave jumping. |
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| Naomi creating a sand masterpiece. |
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| Nick chillin' in his sand chair |
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| Steve dancing and eating cake by the ocean. |
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| Happy Birthday, Honey! |
We went back to the house to get cleaned up for dinner. Steve wanted to take the whole family out for seafood. We picked Mike Dianna's Grill Room and it was perfect. Everyone enjoyed fresh seafood. I was proud of the kids for trying so many new things. They really enjoyed the experience.
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| Yummy seafood!! |
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| There are osprey nests all over the place in Corolla. This one was right outside the restaurant. |
After dinner we went for a drive on the beach. It had rained a little during dinner which made it easier to drive on the beach.
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| The view out the windshield. |
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| We were not alone. |
Back at the house we had more cake while watching "Superman vs. Batman". It was a great day.
July 27, 2016. The wind shifted during the night and was now coming off the ocean which meant warmer water, bigger waves and a cool breeze. This would be a full-day beach day.
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| It wouldn't be a beach trip without a sand pyramid. |
At lunchtime, I headed back to the house to fix sandwiches for everyone. When I reached the top of the steps on the way back with the sandwiches I noticed a pink line in the waves about 100 yards out. I didn't know what it was and pointed it out to Steve. We watched as it slowly approached shore. It ended up being a line of clear jelly fish (the non-stinging kind). Since they arrived at high tide they were all over the beach when the waves started receding. Apparently the wind patterns had forced them miles off their normal course. This was a rare treat to have them show up in the Outer Banks.
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| Jellyfish on the beach. |
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| They were perfectly clear and really squishy. The sunlight made them sparkle a little. It was really pretty. |
Once all the jelly fish had either washed up on shore or moved on the water was crystal clear. Yup, a perfect day on the beach. We eventually and reluctantly went back to the house for dinner, but went right back to the beach for an evening walk. The beach at sunset is a beautiful place and so peaceful.
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| Sitting in the lifeguard's chair. |
July 28, 2016. We spent the morning at the beach. Because the water had been so cold and the waves comparatively small and then the jellyfish invasion had happened we hadn't made it out the sandbar yet. Today was the day.
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| Jeremy and his floating sandcastle. That's Steve in the background out at the sandbar. |
We played for several hours and then decided to head down to Hatteras to see the lighthouse.
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| We stopped along the way to take in the ocean scenery and collect shells. There were a ton of large, white shells here. Naomi and I filled up our shell bag. |
We got to the lighthouse about 1:00. It was so hot (heat index of 110 degrees in the lighthouse) so we were not able to climb to the top, but the view from the ground was worth the trip.
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| I can now check this off my bucket list. |
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The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, with its black and white candy-cane stripes, is one of the most famous and recognizable lighthouses in the world. Protecting one of the most treacherous stretches of the Outer Banks, with a beam of light that spans 20 miles into the ocean, the lighthouse is also the world's tallest brick lighthouse at a staggering 208' ft. tall. (http://www.outerbanks.com/cape-hatteras-lighthouse.html)
Another cool fact, the waters around Hatteras are known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic". There are more than 600 shipwrecks buried in the surrounding waters. |
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| The caretakers house - it is now a museum. |
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| Family photo at the base of the lighthouse. |
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| Naomi took this amazing picture through the window of the museum. |
The trip to Hatteras was probably the highlight for me this trip. I have wanted to visit ever since we moved here 14 years ago. It was well worth the wait!! Back at the house we had dinner and walked on the beach before falling into bed exhausted.
July 29, 2016. This would be our last day on the beach and we made the most of it We rode the waves on the boogie boards, took long walks, played frisbee, built sandcastles, etc.
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| Our masterpiece. |
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| We thought we built it at a safe distance from the waves, but it became a victim of high tide. |
Steve and Naomi took over the camera for the afternoon and had a blast playing with the different features. We ended up with these gorgeous pictures of the waves.
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| Me doing what I LOVE to do - relax and watch the waves. |
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| Naomi and I riding the waves together. |
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| I LOVE to boogie board. It is so much fun and the feeling of catching a wave is indescribable. |
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| We floated and talked about life between waves. |
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| I think Jeremy won the distance contest this time. |
GREAT DAY ON THE BEACH!!! We didn't want to leave, but all things must come to an end. About 4:00 we realized it was time to pack it up and head back to the house for dinner.
Earlier in the day Steve and I decided we would decorate the master bathroom with a beach theme so we could remember our time in the Outer Banks every time we went in there. We started taking pictures with this plan in mind. Here are some of our favorites that will soon be on display in the new bathroom.
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| One last look at our favorite place (taken from the top of the stairs) |
Back at the house we ate dinner, reluctantly packed a little bit and then decided it was time to go for our evening walk on the beach. Steve had some work he needed to do so the kids and I headed out for the final walk. We walked for a couple of hours and went farther up the beach than we had ever walked before. I forgot to bring the camera and wish I had because we found some really amazing tide pools and the sunset was particularly stunning. There were huge, white clouds over the ocean that were reflecting all the pinks and yellows and oranges of the sunset. AMAZING!!! The perfect way to end our beach vacation.
July 30, 2016. We got up early, packed the truck and were on the road by 8:30. After dropping off the keys to the rental company we tried our new route going back our and saved about an hour. We didn't stop at one of our favorite rest stops on the way to the beach because we were too excited to get there so we decided to stop on the way home. It is a little museum and gift shop on the Scuppernog River. There are nature trails and a boardwalk that goes along the river.
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| The view of the river from the nature trail. |
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| This is a zipper spider. They are all over the place and used to really freak me out, but we have become friends and now I think they are cool. |
Another fun stop on the way home was to see the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. Jeremy is considering going there for college, but had never been on campus to see if he even liked it. There is a lot of old historical buildings mixed with the new, high-tech going on. The campus is in the middle of several older neighborhoods and has a very homey feel about it. Jeremy decided he really liked it.
The rest of the trip home was uneventful and we were home, unpacked and chilling by 5:30. As good as it feels to be home and in our own beds, we would give it all up for another week at the beach. At least we are rested up and ready to take on whatever else comes our way for the rest of the summer.
